


Over the Sea of Japan

by deepseadiver



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Episode: s03e24 Abyssinia Henry, Episode: s11e16 Goodbye Farewell and Amen, Friendship, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepseadiver/pseuds/deepseadiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawkeye was ecstatic that the war was over. He was overjoyed. Euphoric. Thrilled. He jumped for joy and over the moon. But he was also terrified. Not because he was leaving Korea, but because of how he and everyone he cared about was leaving Korea: on an airplane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over the Sea of Japan

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of references to Abyssinia Henry in this fic so spoilers for that episode as well as for GFA. Also, this story deals heavily with PTSD and anxiety so please take caution in reading if such subject matter is triggering.

Hawkeye was ecstatic that the war was over. He was overjoyed. Euphoric. Thrilled. He jumped for joy and over the moon. But he was also terrified. Not because he was leaving Korea, but because of how he and everyone he cared about was leaving Korea: on an airplane. Sure, Hawkeye had taken planes in the past two years to Tokyo, and he had taken them back—but he had not taken them with so much to lose. He was finally going home, in fact everyone except Klinger was going home, and this terrified him. The last time someone from the 4077th had gone home after a huge send off and celebration, their plane had been shot down. 

On the last day, when Hawkeye was saying goodbye to the people who had become his family, he was also saying a silent prayer that everyone got home safe. Hawkeye was not a religious man, but he figured that it could not hurt to think a few words to someone above. 

Everyone at the 4077th had become his family, and now everyone was going back to their own families. Hawkeye just hoped they all got there. 

Hawkeye stared at the plane that would take him all the way to Seattle where he could catch a flight to the east coast, and he wondered if it was the same type of plane that Henry had been in. Hawkeye was logical enough to know that no country would break a peace agreement just to shoot down one airplane, but anxiety is not logical.

Radar’s voice echoed in his head.

_Shot down over the Sea of Japan._

“Sir? You need to get on the plane.”

Hawkeye looked toward the sound of the voice and saw a young private who was packing luggage into the hull of the plane.

“Of course,” Hawkeye said easily as he walked toward the steps that led up into the plane, “I was just admiring this giant metal death trap. Do you think they will repurpose them now to drop balloons instead of bombs? Although I suppose the army won’t pay for something that can’t have a large death toll. Not that it’s any of my business, I’m just a civilian now,” Hawkeye gestured to his Hawaiian shirt to prove it.

The private just stared at him as if debating whether it was worse to not answer someone who could be an officer or to talk to someone who seemed to be a few cards short of a full deck. The private settled on just smiling awkwardly and turning back to the stack of luggage.

Hawkeye climbed the steps and looked around at the rows of seats jammed tightly together. He picked one in the back by the window and tried not to grip the armrests too tight. After sitting down, Hawkeye suddenly realized that, by picking the back of the plane, he was going to be facing the worst turbulence. He was about to move to stand up when someone sat down next to him, trapping him in the back.

Pierce turned to ask the person to move when he found himself sitting next to a familiar face.  
“Colonel Potter?” Hawkeye said.

“Well I’ll be darned! What are the chances of this Pierce,” Colonel Potter said.

“High enough apparently,” Hawkeye grinned, relaxing slightly in his seat, “and call me Hawkeye, I’m officially a civilian again. I even wore my civilian underwear.”

Colonel Potter laughed, “well then call me Sherman.”

Hawkeye held out his hand and Sherman shook it, “nice to meet you Sherman, what brings you on this lovely first class flight. Surely they offered for you not to sit with the riff raff.” Hawkeye paused for a second to let BJ make a comment before realizing that BJ was not next to him. That was going to take some getting used to.

“They offered me a better flight, but it didn’t leave for another day, so I opted to downgrade in exchange for getting the heck outta dodge.”

When the plane was finally packed to capacity and then some, it lurched forward towards the runway and the pilot began making a speech about patriotism and making great sacrifices to stop communism. It was so full of optimism that Pierce could tell the pilot had not been one of the men who had made great sacrifices. The other soldiers on the plane did not seem to care about the pilot’s speech either as they talked loudly over it. 

Hawkeye would normally have had an extensive commentary on such a speech, but right then he was too preoccupied with keeping his eyes straight ahead and not ripping the arms off the chairs. 

The plane began to lift off the ground and only a minute later they were over the water. Hawkeye could see this from the window and began to regret his choice of seats even more.

_Over the Sea of Japan._

Sherman, who had been expecting Hawkeye to make a sharp tongued comment about the pilot, or at least a celebratory shout at being out of the warzone, was confused to see a silent Hawkeye looking like he might throw up.

“Are you okay, son?” Sherman asked concerned. 

“Oh yes of course,” Hawkeye replied.

“Not a fan of flying are you?” 

_Shot down._

“Oh I didn’t have a problem with it before I came here, but you see airplanes are used for something different in Korea. Target practice comes to mind,” Hawkeye managed to get out through gritted teeth.

_Lt. Col. Henry Blake’s plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan._

“I see,” Sherman said soberly. He had heard about how close everyone had been to Henry Blake and what his fate had been. Sherman figured that the cheerful goodbye earlier had been like a flashback to Henry Blake’s cheerful farewell. 

“The war is over, son,” Sherman said, trying to sound comforting, “the worst thing that’s going to happen on this plane is the complementary pretzels.”

Hawkeye just nodded and spoke in between fast breaths, “don’t get me wrong Sherman, I’m excited to go home. Lobster, normal weather, a warm bed, and most of all my dad. It’s just the getting there that’s a little difficult.”

_It spun in. There were no survivors._

Sherman nodded. Looking at Hawkeye Sherman wished that Sydney were on the plane instead of him. Sherman could tell that Hawkeye, despite being let out of the psychiatric hospital, was still suffering from some degree of ‘battle fatigue’—as they called it now days. Sherman preferred ‘shell shock’, it was a better phrase for capturing the haunted look in the eyes of the people who were affected by it. 

“Tell me more about Crabapple Cove,” Sherman said.

_There were no survivors._

“Well first of all, it’s a cove. But there are less crabapples than you’d expect…” Hawkeye went on for a few minutes and felt himself relaxing while he talked. His hands unclenched themselves, and he no longer felt like he was trying to breathe through a straw. 

By the time they were an hour into the flight, Hawkeye had told Sherman everything about Maine and his dad, and Sherman had told him everything about Mildred and their plans to start a vegetable garden. Sherman had learned about how to properly eat a lobster, and Hawkeye had learned how to grow tomatoes. 

At the third hour into the flight they encountered some unexpected turbulence, and Hawkeye seized back up again--sitting up straighter than he had in his entire life. Sherman just put a comforting hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder and kept talking. Everyone in the plane around them was being loud and rowdy as the result of finally being free of the war and free of the supervision of their COs, but the two doctors from the 4077th just kept to themselves in the back and talked all the way from Korea to Seattle.

The second they touched down outside Seattle, everyone in the plane cheered. Hawkeye cheered the loudest.

When everyone exited the plane and into the airport to catch their connecting flights, Hawkeye and Sherman hung back for a minute.

“Thank you for what you did for me, Sherman,” Hawkeye did not have to explain what he meant, he knew Sherman had talked the whole way to keep him panicing. Left alone, Hawkeye figured that Sherman would have rather have read a western novel, not spent 12 hours talking about when to plant carrots.

“It was my pleasure, Hawkeye,” Sherman said, “are you going to be okay on the flight to New York?”

“Yeah, I think I’m going to be alright,” Hawkeye smiled.

“We already said goodbye the army way, now let’s try it the civilian way,” Sherman pulled Hawkeye in a friendly hug, which Hawkeye leaned down to accept.

When they pulled back, their eyes were misty. 

“Don’t be a stranger,” Hawkeye said.

“If I ever find myself by Crabapple Cover I’ll be sure to stop by. I’d like to meet your dad, he sounds like a swell guy,” Sherman said.

They said goodbye one more time and then walked in opposite directions to catch their connecting flights. Anyone who had seen the exchange would have thought that they had been friends their whole lives. Together they had been a part of a family as real as any other.


End file.
